Mike wrote yesterday about the owner of Mobile.pro losing its UDRP attempt for the domain Mobile.co. Mobile.co was purchased back in 2010 for $15,000 and today the buyer of that domain has supposedly sold the domain for $238,000. Chadi Ghaith posted the sale on his Facebook page.
It will be interesting to see if the Mobile.pro owner was the buyer of the domain. The previous dealing for the domain was rather odd as mentioned in the UDRP:
Complainant negotiated with Ghaith for purchase of the disputed domain name and reached an agreed price of $59,000.
Ghaith then sent Complainant a “Transfer Overview” page. The purchase agreement between the parties stated that, “in the event a breach of this agreement results in a failed attempt to transfer control of the purchase object mobile.co from seller to buyer, the aggrieved party shall have the right to demand specific performance in lieu of monetary damages.”
Once Complainant’s identity was revealed, Ghaith refused to honour the agreement and did not transfer the disputed domain name to Complainant.
When Ghaith was informed of the suit Complainant brought in the District Court of Arizona, Ghaith attempted to renegotiate sale of the domain name for “not below a $150k reserve.”
Prior to these events the domain name had not been used but now Ghaith began offering services that directly competed with Complainant.
Ghaith then transferred the domain name to Respondent, a personal friend.
According to DNPric.es this would be the second largest .co sale ever, right behind o.co and ahead of OnlineCasino.co at $100,000
The owner is currently http://www.urbbana.com.au.
I’m usually for the domain owner, but Ghaith was totally in the wrong here. And it is too bad a bad apple like him got such a nice sale.
Few more sales like this and .co will take over .fr by the volume to become ccTLD #6.
It is a pity that the complainant was not judged to be a reverse hijacker for trying to steal a generic name. They should be sued for mental damages.
Hello MHB,
AT&T are clearly the big winners, collecting direct navigation traffic, not bad for making the smart choice of .Com Traffic Grid URL.in the first place. KUDOS AT&T
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Domain Master)